


If They Had Lived

by Jaded



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Headcanon, Wishful Thinking, you're alive in my heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9303101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaded/pseuds/Jaded
Summary: If they had lived...A collection of head canons about the crew of Rogue One.





	1. Chapter 1

If the had lived, they would have become real friends, eventually finding something to talk about other than war.

 

If they had lived, they would have stood together in the back of the hall as Princess Leia awarded medals to Skywalker and Solo, leaving together before the end of the ceremony, Cassian’s hand tentative on her back, and instead, going to the darkened hanger to drink to their lost companions, still not admitting to themselves how they felt about one another.

 

If they had lived, Jyn would have kissed him first outside of his quarters on Hoth, her cold-bitten hands frozen to the bone until the moment he reached for her and pulled her back to him as she made to leave for her own bunk.

 

If they had lived, the holoimage of Jyn that Cassian had carried with him during the six-week hunt for the whereabouts of Liana Hallik would have found its way back into the inside of his favorite leather jacket, resting in a pocket just above his breastbone.

 

If they had lived, Cassian would have had the pleasure of seeing her eyes unlined by kohl, and she would have looked for a moment like a girl of 22 who might have had a quiet childhood.

 

If they had lived, Jyn would have seen his face softened by the absence of war, and he would still be beautiful as anyone she had ever known.

 

If they had lived, every night for five years, when she would help him pull off his tunic, Jyn would have traced with her finger Cassian’s scar caused by Krennic’s blaster, as though she would wear it away like water working against stone.

 

If they had lived, Jyn would have tied her kyber necklace around his wrist and made a promise of always to him under a cloudless sky.

 

If they had lived, Cassian would have been Jyn’s first (and only) love. As things turned out, though, that was still true.


	2. If They Had Survived

If they had survived, Baze Malbus would have returned to Jedha after the war to rebuild the Holy City and would have found that the rains of his childhood still fell and that life always found a way back.

 

If they had survived, K2SO would have chosen to mentally simulate a scenario where Cassian Andor at last found peace and happiness, only to see it slowly unfold in real life as the war ended and the years rolled by. And both the simulation–and the reality–pleased him.

 

If they had survived, Luke Skywalker would have given Chirrut Imwe the Kyber crystal from his father’s lightsaber to set as the first stone in the rebuilt Temple of the Whills in Jedha City.

 

If they had survived, Bodhi Rook would have had a chance to save his family–not the one he lost on Jedha, but the one he found on a U-wing streaking through the broken sky as his city crumbled under emerald light.

 

If they had survived, Cassian Andor, who knew what it meant to take a life, would have lived to hold his own child in his arms and learned what it meant to make a life.

 

If they had survived, Jyn Erso would have looked up to find the horizon endless, would have seen before her brothers–big and small–that she had never had before, would have found that in the eyes of someone who loved her that her scars made her more beautiful, and that the aches in her body that never went away were not unkind because they reminded her of all the battles won and the people lost, all in the name of a cause worth dying for.


	3. Chapter 3

Do you ever think about how, because they died:

Jyn never got the chance to wake up in a bed, at peace, and curled up next to someone she loved?

And how Cassian, who spent almost all of his life knowing exactly what he would die for, never had the chance to know what it felt like to have something or someone to live for?

Or how Bodhi, so filled with self-doubt, never got to hear from someone else’s lips that he was brave and a hero, because that is what he was?


	4. Chapter 4

If given the chance to grow old together, they would have started by healing together in a med bay on Yavin IV, comparing wounds and talking long into the night until they each grew hoarse, each other’s voice the lullaby that helped the other drift off into a sleep that wasn’t plagued by nightmares. **  
**

 

If given the chance to grow old together, they would not touch one another for almost a year after Scarif unless it was to pass paperwork or shield the other from a blast because sometimes when you’re invincible once, it usually means you won’t get to be invincible again.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, they would not touch each other until it became too unbearable, until he lost his cool in the cold Hoth passageways and hauled her into his arms and they sunk into his door, into his bed, and then into one another.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, Cassian and Jyn would have signed the official paperwork that made their union a legal contract on the transport ship on their way down to her grandmother’s homeworld of Aria Prime; all this a mere formality for a life in peace after the life they had already made together in war.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, they would have built a home with walls of windows so that the light could always be let in, so that the sun would rise and fall with the open and close of day instead of with the crack of a hatch from above.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, Jyn would have become expert in making their homestead thrive and their crops grow, and she would tell Cassian, with a soft kiss, “I was once a farm girl, didn’t you know?”

 

If given the chance to grow old together, it would have become habit for Jyn to kiss the callouses on his hands formed by decades with a sniper rifle until the day they disappeared and were replaced by the blisters made from tilling soil.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, Cassian would have become a good cook. Jyn, however, would not.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, they would have named their first and only child after a star thought once lost, only to be found again.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, Cassian would have spent hours making up stories for their child, uncomplicated tales of good guys who always won and villains who always got their due, because a child of six had a whole lifetime to learn the darkness of the universe, and it could wait.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, Jyn would have had the chance to see what it was like for a child to grow up with a father who stayed and a mother who lived.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, Cassian, who was once struck by how Jyn Erso seemed to be like who someone who couldn’t die, would have to accept that one day that she could.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, Jyn would always be home because she would always have him.

 

If given the chance to grow old together, they would have taken it.

**Author's Note:**

> Want to find me on tumblr? I'm _operaticspacetrash_.


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